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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manc ... 184578.stm

Fire crews face booby-trap risk

Firefighters in Merseyside are regularly called to "booby-trapped" fires, their union claims.

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) says crews have faced razor blades in banisters, holes in floors covered with carpet and "greased" steps.

It claims the incidents, at least 40 reported a week, are so common they are considered an "occupational hazard".

Merseyside Fire Service said it is concerned about the problem, but disputes the number of incidents.

FBU Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service secretary, Les Skarratts, told the BBC firefighters had found staircase rails with embedded razorblades or hypodermic needles and outside steps smeared with axle grease.

Other reported incidents include removed floorboards covered over with carpet.

"It really is a serious issue for firefighters on Merseyside," he said.

"It is common for every firefighter in the area to come across the problem."

A dedicated team to tackle anti-social behaviour, including firefighter attacks, was recently set up by Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, with Merseyside Police.

The fire service said it receives reports of only two or three incidents a year.

But John McGhee, FBU National Officer, says there is a "poor process" of reporting firefighter attacks, which explains the low official figures.

"It's almost like there is an attitude now that it has almost become part of the job and staff just have to put up with it and don't report it," he said.

Smashed windscreen

He said a recent national survey the FBU carried out showed there are 40 attacks a week on firefighters, but the figures could be as high as 120.

Mr McGhee said he has no real idea why these attacks are happening.

"One reason could be because disaffected youths think that firefighters are part of the establishment and are a fair target because of it," he said.

"We've had some firefighters who have been very seriously hurt - they have been stoned while tackling fires and scaffolding posts have been put through windscreens of fire engines."

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

The answer is rather simple....

Just bang anyone up found guilty of attacking emergency service personnel for a f**king long time......they won't find it so amusing when they have a 5 stretch wrapped around their bollocks.

Oh, and no chance of parole either.....you start wilfully or recklessly endangering life and you kiss the parole board goodbye.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

my vote would be for the fire crews to introduce the offending scum to the joys of fire
Bring back the stake!

I couldn't disagree with the severest possible punishment. But it strikes me as rather naive to think that big punishments are a solution. The big problems are:

- If anyone is stupid (/twisted/whatever) enough to think that attacking fire crews is a good idea, it is unreasonable to expect them to correctly associate the punishment with their own actions. If the logic isn't there, well, the logic isn't there.

- Far too many perpetrators simply don't believe that they will be caught, and that makes the deterent ineffective.

- This 'attacking fire crews' thing can only be a symptom of a wider social sickness. It can't be expected to go away until the underlying causes are exposed and improved.

- If the theory of 'kicking at authority' is corrent then we need to look very carefully at the way 'authority' is being perceived.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Couldn't agree more (have you read my post in "VH and the rules" on PH!).

Whilst pointing out that you are in danger of "getting tough on the causes of crime" - I'm wholey in agreement that we have a social malaise which is eroding the "public morals" and that if we don't face up to this the results will be a very divided and dangerous society even at local levels. "Authority" has to earn respect in order to receive it - we have lost sight of this.

Authority as in "The recognised Authorities of the land", or authority with respect to that of the individual, the parent, the teacher.
Respect is a two way street, to earn it from the authorities you have to give it. Who goes first?

A difficult one! I certainly think that we have got ourselves into a situation where authority is being imposed by Govt. To some extent this may be a reason why indivdual authority is not respected either? In terms of people like teachers etc, they have seen their ability to exercise reasoned authority constantly eroded by govt impositions, and that is another reason why that type of individual authority is less respected - because people see govt non respecting or valuing it, so they do likewise.

As society has become richer, and as scientific understanding has advanced, we have seen the previous cultural glues gradually dissolve.

We used to be 'God fearng', but for many God doesn't make sense any more. That's because we no longer need god to explain weather or sickness or death.

We used to have fierce discipline for young people. National service. The cane. Spare the rod and spoil the child. But greater wealth means that we have more time to worry about right and wrong. For better or worse we have decided that 'fierce discipline' is no longer the correct approach.

We used to have the British bobby. He might give you a clip around the ear, but even the criminals trusted him to be fair.

We used to have a clear divide between criminals and everyone else. But now everyone comes into contact with the law sooner or later. And when everyone's a criminal, there are no criminals.

All these changes and many more change the individual's experience of authority from an early age. For most people the current arrangements work just fine. But more people than every before don't respect or fit in with our modern society.

We can't turn the clock back, but what we must do is create a general social culture where authority is respected. It is authority's responsibility to earn respect again.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

A worthy long term goal with which I agree.

But, in the meantime, what do we do with the people who are already outside of the social norm?

I suppose it's like the road safety thing, really. We have to help the majority achieve their best performance and use the Police to deal with those that don't choose to 'join in'.

I'm really big on influencing road safety by managing culture; we find the shortfalls in beliefs and attitudes and address them directly with information.

The same sort of approach might also be applied to society in a broader more general sense.

If we look at 1,000 13 year olds, sorted by their likelihood that they will become thieves, clearly there's going to be a continuum from 'certain' at the bottom to 'never, no chance' at the top. In the middle (or rather skewed towards the bottom I hope) there will be (perhaps) a few dozen that could go either way. That's where we have to work.

And another point - also like road safety - it's a giant system, and the best we can do is nudge it in the right direction by small steady increments.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

This has been a problem for demo and refurbishment contractors for many years now, funnily enough not so much of a problem when there are squatters in the property.

One site manager caught some little darlings putting hyperdermics in the light fittings, he locked them in a container on site for a day in the middle of summer, he never had any problems on his site after that, somewhat worrying that he took the law into his own hands but given that the police stated there was nothing they could do...

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

MMmmh!...Well, the first thing to say here is........I live in Merseyside......just!

A few more yards (metres to you lot) would have me in Cheshire..

Now DON'T all run away with the impression that ALL of Merseyside is like that....it isn't........We have our "nutters" it is true.....like any other area these days.

But the area where this is happening is a small area of derelect Liverpool....and it's KIDS that are doing it!


"It's a laugh 'innit?".......little cretins!

One chap I know is a Bus driver. He eventually refused to take the bus into liverpool when his bus was "speared" by kids throwing a steel rod which pierced the side of the vehicle where passengers where sitting!.......


It's like something out of "Lord of the Flies"!.......


Yes, I've also heard stories of Firemen being: "set up" by the kids for YEARS now! ...and they CAN'T react otherwise they'll be sued! (the kids of course know this) and a solicitor around the corner is ready and waiting to take public money to defend the little scrotes!....... The Police say: "They are too busy"...... Yet will arrest a fireman if he so much as turns hose on the little Bas...ds when they are throwing stones at them!.....(funny they can find the time for that)....

AAaaaaand I have it on VERY good authority (nudge-nudge, wibble-wibble) that the Merseyside Police are, quote: "Awash with money" One wonders why then we cannot get better policing?.....



Trouble is folks..................the "flies" are spreading!


Oh and the latest is:.............The government wants to shut down many fire stations and make many firefighters redundant in this area to.........save money?


Methinks merseyside is about to go Tory!...........

If they're outside the social norm, remove them from society. Parents obviously don't instil discipline in their offscum so we need to, and try to educate the parents as to what is acceptable behaviour. I have no sympathy whatsoever with chavscum. Lock the little ******** up and throw away the key with no TV etc...

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Nor did I mate, until I met some of them at a referal unit in Wolverhampton. A lot of these kids have absolutely no chance of living a decent life because they are born into atrocious conditions, with no role models and no guidance on what is right and wrong.
IMHO you are right to say that we need to educate the parents, but many are beyond that. The solution then would be to remove the 'at risk' kids from their oxygen thief parents as soon as they are born and take them into care, of the state if necessary. In that way you immediately isolate them from the cause of their impending problems and they can be brought up as good citizens, or at least have half a chance of doing so. But, of course, this isn't the way we do things, its interventionist social engineering.

I think as we have “Evolved” and become more conscious as a society we have taken on more responsibility. In effect because of that responsibility we are not only allowing but rewarding the very behaviour that is causing this damage.

A benefit system that makes it very difficult to get off, especially when children are included means that we are seeing multiple generations that give nothing back to society but instead use that system to produce yet another generation living in squalor, with no or little hope of escape, because society rewards them for doing the wrong things. Prior to the national welfare system this is unlikely to have happened, and certainly not on the same scale.

Don’t get me wrong the welfare state has its place I’m just not sure our implementation of it is quite right.

We could do something to turn it around but I think the bleeding hearts and hand wringers would ensure its failure because it would “not be fair” or such like and no political party would be able to promote such policies for fear of never getting elected.

By removing blame, failure and punishment from people’s lives we remove responsibility, respect, culpability, liability and general all the things that used to stop the “I want, I’ll take” attitude that is killing society.

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

I think both the Fire Service and the Ambulance Service have more than earned respect.
Lets face it, if someone calls for their help, even if they are the vilest scrote in the land, they turn out and help.
The problem is, these scrotes can't recognise respect, even if it is stood in front of them, they have no concept of respect in this day and age, mainly because they can do no wrong, and nothing is ever their fault.
The Fire Service in Bradford has video cameras in their vehicles to video scrotes that attack them, not much good, because they all wear scarves or hoodies, but even if they can be identified, the courts don't punish them, thats if the police can catch them.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.